This painting is part of a series of three paintings with everytime a person of my family who I love so much. This one is "Maxime", my husband.
Inspired by religious paintings, I wanted to sublimate the love between us by using the light through a delicate halo which appears behind Maxime's head. This embrace could be both a reunion and a farewell. A painting never goes away when the worse happens. So, I try to freeze this moment for ever.
I am often told that art is what is left after you are gone. That pretty much sums up the issues I have, and more particularly in painting. I work with very long drying times, around three weeks between each coat of paint and a year before applying the final varnish. This practice and these rules that I impose on myself, open me to a form of meditation with the subject. I think that this allows me precisely to perpetuate these moments until the last brushstroke.
